The Wonderful World of Disney: Story, Cast and Series Facts

Story and premise

The Wonderful World of Disney sometimes called "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color" premiered on ABC on Wednesday, October 27, 1954. The same basic series has since appeared on several major networks. The show is the second longest running prime-time program on American television, behind rival film anthology, the Hallmark Hall of Fame. However, Hallmark Hall of Fameaired as a weekly program during its first five seasons before becoming a bi-monthly program, while Disney remained a weekly program for more than 40 years. Originally hosted by Walt Disney himself, the original format of the Disney anthology series consisted of a balance of theatrical animated cartoons, live-action features, and other informational material (some original, some pre-existing) from the studio's library. For many years, the show also featured edited one-hour versions of such then-recent Disney films as Alice in Wonderland, and in other cases, telecasts of complete Disney films that were split into two or more one-hour episodes. Later original programs consisted of dramatizations of other historical figures and legends along the lines of the Davy Crockett mini-series. These included a miniseries based on Daniel Boone (not the Fess Parker characterization), Texas John Slaughter, Elfego Baca, Francis Marion, the "Swamp Fox", and 1977's Kit Carson and the Mountain Man (with Christopher Connelly as Kit Carson, Robert Reed as John C. Fremont, and Gregg Palmer as mountain man Jim Bridger).

Series details

• Title: The Wonderful World of Disney
• Format: Variety
• Language: English
• Genres: Family
• Premiere date: 1954-10-27
• Status in TVmaze: Running
• Network listed by TVmaze: NBC
• Network country: United States
• Typical episode runtime: 61 minutes
• TVMaze ID: 22918
• TVDB ID: 77480

Cast and credited roles

• Walt Disney — Host
• Michael Eisner — Host
• Dick Tufeld — Announcer
• Dick Wesson — Announcer

Seasons in the TVmaze catalogue

• Season 1: premiered 1954-10-27; final listed air date 1955-07-17; episode order: 22.
• Season 2: premiered 1955-09-14; final listed air date 1956-05-30; episode order: 26.
• Season 3: premiered 1956-09-12; final listed air date 1957-06-05; episode order: 26.
• Season 4: premiered 1957-09-11; final listed air date 1958-05-14; episode order: 26.
• Season 5: premiered 1958-10-03; final listed air date 1959-05-29; episode order: 26.
• Season 6: premiered 1959-10-02; final listed air date 1960-04-01; episode order: 26.
• Season 7: premiered 1960-10-16; final listed air date 1961-06-11; episode order: 31.
• Season 8: premiered 1961-09-24; final listed air date 1962-04-15; episode order: 26.
• Season 9: premiered 1962-09-23; final listed air date 1963-03-24; episode order: 25.
• Season 10: premiered 1963-09-29; final listed air date 1964-05-17; episode order: 27.
• Season 11: premiered 1964-09-20; final listed air date 1965-04-04; episode order: 25.
• Season 12: premiered 1965-09-19; final listed air date 1966-04-10; episode order: 24.
• Season 13: premiered 1966-09-11; final listed air date 1967-04-02; episode order: 25.
• Season 14: premiered 1967-09-10; final listed air date 1968-04-28; episode order: 27.
• Season 15: premiered 1968-09-15; final listed air date 1969-03-23; episode order: 22.
• Season 16: premiered 1969-09-14; final listed air date 1970-03-29; episode order: 21.
• Season 17: premiered 1970-09-13; final listed air date 1971-03-14; episode order: 21.
• Season 18: premiered 1971-09-19; final listed air date 1972-04-09; episode order: 19.
• Season 19: premiered 1972-09-17; final listed air date 1973-04-01; episode order: 20.
• Season 20: premiered 1973-09-16; final listed air date 1974-03-31; episode order: 21.
• Season 21: premiered 1974-09-15; final listed air date 1975-03-23; episode order: 17.
• Season 22: premiered 1975-09-14; final listed air date 1976-07-25; episode order: 19.
• Season 23: premiered 1976-09-26; final listed air date 1977-05-22; episode order: 21.
• Season 24: premiered 1977-09-18; final listed air date 1978-06-04; episode order: 18.
• Season 25: premiered 1978-09-17; final listed air date 1979-05-13; episode order: 20.
• Season 26: premiered 1979-09-09; final listed air date 1980-07-27; episode order: 17.
• Season 27: premiered 1980-09-14; final listed air date 1981-08-16; episode order: 10.
• Season 28: premiered 1981-09-26; final listed air date 1982-07-31; episode order: 24.
• Season 29: premiered 1982-09-25; final listed air date 1983-05-03; episode order: 18.
• Season 30: premiered 1986-02-02; final listed air date 1986-06-22; episode order: 18.

Source and licence

Adapted from The Wonderful World of Disney on TVmaze. The synopsis is reproduced as plain text; catalogue facts, cast and season records are selected and reformatted. This adapted text is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, following the TVmaze API licence. Network and web-channel credits identify the service listed in this source; they do not establish current streaming availability.